Castleford Tigers boss Craig Lingard believes Wigan return brought 'good step' forward for his team

The Tigers were every bit as injury-hit as in the Challenge Cup tie with the world champs and lost another player with Charbel Tasipale suffering a potentially serious knee injury in the first 10 minutes, but produced a more spirited effort in a 36-14 defeat.

​"We knew the level of the task coming here after the performance and defeat last week and we were missing Joe Westerman and Alex Mellor from that team as well,” said Lingard.

"We had a couple of late changes again, Sylvster Namo failed to get his (five-match) ban overturned and Alex Mellor failed his fitness test so we were pretty much down to the proper bare bones.

"We spoke all week about being competitive and wanted individuals to have a competitive edge about them and we showed that, certainly in the first half.

"After last week we could have quite easily rolled over but we kept going all the way through to the end and we'll take that into the London game.

"There were loads of positives to take from that. Obviously we know we need to get consistently better, but that’s a good step for us.”

Lingard was pleased with the way young players George Hill and Sam Hall coped with playing against Wigan.

He added: “For a young kid like George Hill to make his debut against a team like Wigan and play that first 40 minutes as well as he did was exceptional.

"The plan was to get him out there and give the first 15, 20 minutes then take him off and try to get him back on, but he was that good in the first half that I wanted to leave him out there. It’s a testament to his attitude, his performance and fitness to be able to do that against the quality of a team like Wigan.

"Sam’s been great all season. He gets us on the front foot, he’s strong and aggressive with his carries. He’s here for the long term and I’m hoping he goes from strength to strength.”

Lingard is hoping to have a stronger squad to choose from for Friday’s game at home to London Broncos and admitted he was still looking to bring in more players after Cas signed Louis Senior on loan from Hull KR last week and added full-back Tex Hoy on a deal to the end of the season.

Hoy recently left Hull FC by mutual consent and had been looking for a club since his departure.

After playing 29 games in the NRL for the Newcastle Knights between 2020 and 2022, Hoy signed for Hull in 2023 and made 24 appearances, scoring four tries and kicking three goals.

Hoy is filliing the quota spot at Castleford vacated by Albert Vete who left the club by mutual consent last week.

Tigers director of rugby operations Danny Wilson said: “We are always looking at improving the squad and we feel Tex coming in does just that.

"He has some real quality and has a point to prove in the Super League.

"Bringing in Tex gives some healthy competition at full-back.”